


The Stork Job

by Wind_Ryder



Series: Finding The Way By The Moonlight [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Baby, Family Issues, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:45:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Where the hell did this even come from and what are we supposed to do with it?” Perhaps the most remarkable feat of all had come from the tone. Arthur still hadn’t raised his voice, hadn’t instilled any irritation or anger. Instead, he sounded calmly perturbed, the explicative simply stressing the importance to find the answer more than anything else. Eames couldn’t help the snort that rose in his throat, but he did manage to reply without a smile until the very last word. </p><p>“I don’t know, but let’s at least try not to break it, darling. And by the way it’s a “she” not an “it.’” Finally Arthur’s eyes crinkled with distaste and he turned to face Eames head on. </p><p>~*~<br/>On a standard job, Eames finds a baby in the hallway of his hotel, and brings it to Arthur in order to find out what to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stork Job

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the "Finding the way by the moonlight" series, and about three years or so prior to Inception. 
> 
> Inspired off of this image on tumblr: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8rmobHZFf1ruk00yo1_500.jpg and the responses that followed. 
> 
> This is my first Inception fanfiction...and one of my first one shots too. I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> new to tumblr, but visit if you'd like: 
> 
> http://falcon-fox-and-coyote.tumblr.com

Eames wasn’t exactly sure what Arthur’s reaction was going to be, exactly, but he had a few guesses that were progressively more entertaining the longer he thought about it. On one hand, he imagined that Arthur could turn out to be something like a super-nanny. He had spent quite a lot of time with Cobb’s children when they were younger. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure exactly how much of that timeframe had involved the children in diapers, and something happened to you when it was a child you knew versus a child you didn’t know. So this could be an entirely new experience for him. 

Regardless, he bounced the baby in his arms a few more times and knocked twice on Arthur’s hotel room door. It opened after a ridiculous pause that Eames felt was pushing the boundaries of social acceptance, even Arthur should have grasped the situation in the spyhole quickly enough to realize that he wasn’t a threat…just beholden. 

“Mr. Eames.” Arthur’s voice was silky smooth, but it id nothing to hide the underlying threat that was always present when he wasn’t in a good mood. 

“Yes, darling?” 

“What exactly are you doing here?” He asked primly, and Eames took that as all the invitation he needed. He easily shouldered into the room and let Arthur close and lock the door behind him. Then, because he felt this conversation was best had with his hands free, he placed his burden down on the bed and took a step away from it. Arthur moved towards it and they stood side by side for a moment to appraise the situation fully. Eames was desperately trying to keep a straight face, particularly when Arthur seemed to be assessing his burden with the same attention he gave to building a PASIV device from scratch. “Mr. Eames.” He finally settled on.

“Yes, darling?” Eames asked, still forcing the smile down because this reaction was about as priceless as anything else in the world. 

“Where the hell did this even come from and what are we supposed to do with it?” Perhaps the most remarkable feat of all; had come from the tone. Arthur still hadn’t raised his voice, hadn’t instilled any irritation or anger. Instead, he sounded calmly perturbed, the explicative simply stressing the importance to find the answer more than anything else. Eames couldn’t help the snort that rose in his throat, but he did manage to reply without a smile until the very last word. 

“I don’t know, but let’s at least try not to break it, darling. And by the way it’s a “she” not an “it.’” Finally Arthur’s eyes crinkled with distaste and he turned to face Eames head on. 

“What do you mean you don’t know?” His voice was raised now, and there was just the slightest bit of panic in his eyes. 

“Well, I found her you see.” 

“You found her.” The disbelief was evident, and Eames raised his hands in a placating manner. 

“Well, that’s just it, darling-”

“You call me that one more time and I’m going to break at least three of your ribs.” The threat came out far too calmly to be taken seriously, although the slightly manic expression on his face made Eames doubt that assessment. 

“I found her in the hall this morning, Arthur.” 

“The hall.” The pointman repeated, raising his left hand so he could pinch his nose in irritation. “You just, found her lying there.” 

“Yes.” 

“Nothing around, no one noticing a thing.” 

“Well, there was a note.” 

“A note.” 

“You certainly seem to enjoy echoing me today, you’re usually not this slow.” 

“You’ve brought a baby into my hotel room at three in the morning, Eames, if you want a faster response time you should have called child services!” 

“Brilliant suggestion Arthur, and what pray tell is the number for child services in Lisbon? You see, I usually have it in my phone, but I seem to have forgotten Portugal’s addition to my emergency contacts list. I’ll update it as soon as I get the chance!” The joke had well and truly ceased being funny any longer, and he was just as tired and as annoyed as Arthur was about the situation. 

They had a job to do in less than four hours and they couldn’t afford wasting time on this type of nonsense. Eames knew full well that most of Arthur’s irritation had come from that sound fact, but he honestly hadn’t quite known what to do with the girl once he’d found her. 

Without being asked, he pulled the crumpled paper from his pocket and he held it up for Arthur to read. His eyes narrowed in a slightly pinched way that made his face look almost squirrely. It took him a few moments longer than usual to translate the Portuguese, but Eames chalked that up to the late hour and the strange situation. Arthur could be forgiven, for now. 

“It’s not even addressed to you.” He pointed out dully. 

“Thank you for that stunning realization.” Eames bit out before reclaiming the note. “But whoever Rodrigo Alves is, we’ve got his daughter and her mother left it to him to decide what to do with her.” 

There was a slight twitch in Arthur’s cheek that had absolutely nothing to do with his obvious exhaustion. Arthur turned his attention back down to the baby who was waking up from her brief nap and was starting to look about his room with big bug eyes that were too large for her head. Her toothless mouth opened in a gurgled laugh and she wiggled her hands and her feet like a worm. 

Eames had thought that perhaps the child would warm up some of that frosty exterior, but all it managed to do was make Arthur frown harder. He sighed and pinched his nose again before giving Eames a baleful look. “It’s not our problem.” It wasn’t the answer that Eames was expecting, and he tilted his head slightly in consideration. Arthur was right about that, it had absolutely nothing to do with them. The baby’s mother clearly had mistaken which room the child needed to be dropped off at, and she should be handed over to the authorities in order to find a proper home. The note could help them locate her father and that would be that. 

“Well, seeing as how we do have the girl now...” 

“Get rid of it.” Arthur told him firmly, and Eames sighed. 

“And how exactly am I to do that when I can’t walk into any police agency without a thousand alarms going off? Or shall I leave her in a box in the trash to be collected in the morning?” Arthur flinched again, and this time he looked honestly stricken by the idea. It was only for a moment, but finally he sighed and sat on the bed beside the baby. His head tipped into his hands and he took a deep breath.

“Fine.” He muttered. He reached for his laptop, which was already up and running on the bed, and slowly began to type. His fingers progressed more rapidly as time went on, and Eames left him to it. Instead, his attention travelled to the baby who was starting to get frustrated with her current position and was clearly interested in movement. 

She wasn’t a newborn; that much was certain. She had too much range of motion for that. She was still only a couple of months old at best. Her baby fuzz was starting to become thicker hair, but everything about her was soft and malleable. Her eyes were a bit too big, and her nose was kind of squished, and her lips expanded awkwardly over both cheeks. Eames still cooed at her about how beautiful she was and she was delighted by his attention. 

Every so often Eames would catch Arthur’s look of extreme distaste, but he didn’t comment on it and didn’t complain. Arthur was doing him a favor; sort of…he wasn’t quite sure how to classify this. Whatever it was, though, he was grateful. 

In the end, it took Arthur only about twenty minutes to track down everything he could about a Rodrigo Alves that had been residing in their hotel up until five hours ago. He’d just left to board a flight to Spain where he was going to be working for a manufacturing plant over the course of a year in hopes of moving to a managerial position. Eames raised a brow at the depth of the research, and praised it in good form. 

“It’s useless.” Arthur told him blithely. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“The job, Mr. Eames, we have a job in four hours that needs to be done. It will take far more time than that to get to Spain, deliver Alves his…offspring…and return to complete our job. And we can’t exactly bring her with us. So the point is moot. We’ll leave her with Hotel staff in the morning, and all of this was a waste of time.” Closing his laptop, Arthur crossed his arms over her chest. 

The baby started screeching that high pitched cry for attention that came to all children, and Arthur actually seemed to have a spinal seizure at the noise. His head and neck shuddered and he turned away as though it would help block it out. “So, I should just…drop her off at the nearest food cart then?” 

“No! Of course not!” Arthur hissed, exasperation flooding his tone. 

“Exactly what do you want me to do with her, Arthur? Being as we do have her for at least another four hours?” 

“Less than that. Two hours, tops. We have to prepare-” There was a touch of panic in his voice, and Eames grit his teeth. 

“We can push back the time frame.” Eames said quietly. 

“What? What are you talking about, no we can’t-”

“Yes we can. Look, we planned for this didn’t we? Ages and ages ago, about how if we missed the first grab we could get him on the second? We have time to go to Spain and give Rodrigo Alves his daughter. If we left right now-”

“I am not abandoning this job just so you can satisfy some insane urge-”

“You know where Alves is going to be! You just stalked the man across national border and various work order forms. We’ve got his kid, Arthur, don’t you want a family to be put back together again?” 

“It’s not going to ever be put together. The mom dumped her and the dad’s not here, and even if we find him who’s to say after all that work the dad even wants to meet her? Maybe he just doesn’t give a shit and wants to live his own life. Maybe he’s a fucking ass hole who banged some girl and doesn’t give a damn about the consequences. Maybe he’ll just take her in and beat the hell out her because he can’t handle it when he loses his job. She’s better off not knowing either of them and given to people who care about her instead.” Eames frowned at that, not used to hearing half of those words coming out of Arthur’s face and even afterwards not sure how to respond to them. He hesitates for a long while, before slowly moving closer. 

“Or maybe he’s wanted a little girl his whole life and he doesn’t realize he’s been given a chance to have his dream come true, and we’re keeping her from him.” 

“He’s the one who left. If he gave a damn, he should have stuck around longer.” Arthur replied stubbornly, but Eames shook his head. 

“Sometimes relationships fall through, sometimes things happen, but kids…kids are different. Sometimes people change irrevocably when they have kids, and it fills up something inside that they always wanted.”

“Like a punching bag?” Arthur asked bitterly, clearly not buying whatever argument Eames was making for him. 

“Like a family.” Eames reached out and touched Arthur’s shoulder. “You don’t have to come, but I want to do this. Let me head out, okay? I’ll make it back in time for the second run…I won’t be late.” 

Arthur worked his jaw for a moment, eyes slanting towards where the baby was trying to stuff her toes into her mouth. His hands were clenching and unclenching in his lap, but finally he nodded jerkily. “I’ll call the team.” He muttered, reaching for his phone even as Eames stood up to pick up the baby. He was half way through trying to bundle the child up when Arthur ended his brief calls and glared at him. 

“You need to…just…” Reaching out, he did something with a couple of towels that suddenly transformed the little girl into a cacoon of warmth in a wriggle free bundle that wasn’t going anywhere fast. The baby looked fascinated by her new position and laughed at it even as Arthur started to rig his backpack with towels and bottles of water, and then – suddenly he’d handed a jerry-rigged papoose to Eames with a furious blush on his cheeks. 

“Darling, I am impressed.” 

“Shut up.” Arthur replied irritably, sliding the baby into the backpack. She could still look out and interact with the world, but she was cozy and snug surrounded by all the soft padding, and the zipper wasn’t digging into her or making her uncomfortable. Arthur’s hand reached down and grabbed the key to the room. “Come on…if we hurry we can catch the next train.” 

Hours later, after they had been complimented on their daughter’s beautiful smile and good demeanor, after Eames had preformed every facial expression he knew, after Arthur had shown remarkable dexterity by balancing the baby and eating a salad without either interfering with the other, and after Eames had snapped a few quick photos on his camera phone, Eames would remember this job most fondly for this moment here. 

The moment when they finally did manage to meet Rodrigo Alves, and when Eames explained the story and handed over the letter: Rodrigo let out a cry to the lord and took the child from where Arthur had been holding her possessively several feet away. He’d had to nearly pry the girl from Arthur’s arms, but eventually the pointman relinquished his burden and watched with narrowed eyes as the man pressed kisses to her forehead and cried tears on her face. They were thanked over and over again, and they were informed that the girl’s mother had left him when she was seven months pregnant, and he had feared he would never see the child again. 

“This is a miracle, a miracle! Proof God exists!” The man insisted, but neither Arthur nor Eames were religious enough to comment either way. They accepted his thanks, but refused his offer for payment. 

When they turned to head back to the train and to get back to the job they desperately needed to finish, Eames watched Arthur’s face as he mulled over the events that had passed. 

“Not happy?” Eames asked carefully, uncertain. 

“No, no I am…” Arthur said, sounding more off kilter than usual. “Just…surprised it turned out that way. You…you were right.” Arthur told him, and Eames let out a laugh at the proclamation. 

“That does happen from time to time.” 

“Yes…yes I suppose it does.” They boarded the train, and Arthur spent most of his time looking out the window. Eames knew he should probably let it pass, but he couldn’t help leaning forwards and quietly telling him one last bit of sage advice that he felt he could offer today. 

“You know, Arthur…sometimes you’re right, and your blood isn’t the family you want them to be. But…family isn’t always about blood. It’s about who chooses to love you. And you have that, Arthur. You have people who love you, and your family grows bit by bit all the time…if you’ll let it.” 

Arthur glanced back at him with a passive expression, and Eames waited for some form of irritable response. It was entirely possible that he overstepped his bounds here. What he got instead was a surprising show of immaturity, as Arthur rolled his eyes. A smile tugged at his lips, and he directed his attention out the window. “Just don’t mess up this job more than it already has been, Mr. Eames.” 

Eames laughed at that. 

The job went fine, and everyone was paid and went on to their next line of work without so much as a glance back. Two weeks later, Arthur had an another job offer for him, and Eames took it. He had some time to kill anyway. If asked about his job in Lisbon, however, Eames always fondly recalled that particular job by the title he gave it after the fact: The Stork Job. He decided it fit, and when he called it that around Arthur: he always blushed somewhat and looked away awkwardly. Even if it was for a lark, getting under Arthur's skin was always fun, and this time: there were several fond memories to go with it. Nothing could be better after all.


End file.
